I am writing. This post is half inspired, half reluctant. I have so many words inside that just rush throughout me all day long, yet I find releasing them to be such a harrowing task. They never seem to come out right. However, being as I am going to be a teacher and encouraging my students day in and day out to write, I may as well practice what I preach and put a few words down on paper.
I am currently reading Emily Freeman's
A Million Little Ways, and boy, has it inspired me. I've always been all for discovering my God-given passions and connecting with those truths that have always been there, inside of me. In college, I read Parker Palmer's
Let Your Life Speak and struggled, like really struggled, trying to understand what my calling was. We did all these fancy practices to uncover them, "figure them out," and I just couldn't. I wanted to know my path so badly. The harder I tried to find it, I think the less success I had.
Now, here I am reading Emily's words, and I realize that at some point in the past year of, I did it. I found that thing that makes me come alive. The story of how that happened is another post entirely, but somehow, after years of having no idea of who I was, I figured I want to teach. I don't just want to lecture in front of a class and grade papers. I want to teach hearts and minds to bloom, just like mine has upon connecting with this massive, awesome love of mine.
Of course, upon figuring this all out, I am faced with a period of intensive waiting. Waiting at home to get a sub license (to fill time during my wait), waiting for sub jobs to appear. Waiting to get into a teaching preparation program, waiting for classes to begin (February 3rd). I've spent many a day of waiting alongside my twitter feed - an awesome yet horrible source of inspiration that taunts me with this teaching world I'm not quite part of. #edchatnotyet
Emily, on waiting:
"You are in a season of waiting. When you finally show up ready to release your art by being the person you believe you are created to be, there may be nothing more disheartening than to be asked to wait. The waiting can drive us mad if we let it. It can become a merciless dictator, shoving us into shapes we aren’t made for, shapes of worry and doubt and short tempers."
As I wait, I sub. These experiences are both enlightening and frustrating. I am so pumped to finally be in a classroom that I do not realize it is not at all what my teaching career will be like. I am told, "it will be different when you have your own classroom." I am told, "subbing is way harder than teaching." I am told, "the kids act way differently when their with their classroom teacher." After a particularly challenging day of subbing, I decide to take a little break. These challenging days cue self doubt. I ask my boyfriend, a teacher himself, if I'm really cut out for teaching. I want to be. I so want to be.
In A Million Little Ways, Emily quotes Steven Pressfield:
“Self-doubt can be an ally. This is because it serves as an indicator of aspiration. It reflects love, love of something we dream of doing, and desire, desire to do it. If you find yourself asking yourself . . . ‘Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?’ Chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.”
This resonates with me and fills me up with such great hope. One day I'm all, "I'm made to connect with these kiddos" and "I will give all I have to ensure that they succeed" and the next day I'm feeling slightly crazy and am sure that I can't handle the politics and high stress environment that is teaching. Then I read this, and I think, or rather know, that all of these thoughts are an indication of just how much this all means to me. I come alive when I talk about teaching and education and children's futures. It's just all so big and scary, which is the reason I've shied away from it in the past. There's so much at stake when you're a teacher.
Okay, one more Emily quote because I am just so inspired and ready to get out there and DO THIS:
"Sometimes inspiration toward that thing that makes you come alive follows after you so hard and so loud that you look around to see how everyone else is reacting to this most obvious explosion of creativity happening right here in this room. It is bright and tangible and full."
This is beautiful and so YES. I feel this. I feel that inspiration.
xo
Miss Elizabeth
P.S. I ordered 192 teacher stationery cards because I'm just crazy like that and they are cheaper in mass quants. Oh, and a $100 off coupon code (courtesy of my new obsession with entering online giveaways) helps. Check out Pear Tree Greetings for some super cute stuff. Can't wait to use them in…20 months?? Boo time just pass please.
